He exhales.
“We were genuinely happy, you know? We thought he’d finally see his adoptive family for what they really were—toxic. Nero was always so focused on absolute gratitude and on his need to prove he deserved everything they supposedly gave him that he never managed to see it. We thought building his own family—a real, healthy one—would make him see. But even that Lysandra poisoned.”
A tear slides down my cheek, and I don’t know if it’s because of the situation as a whole or because of Drako’s words. I don’t stop it. Nor the next. Nor the one after.
I wondered many times how Nero was handling my leaving. And even though for most of the last few years I believed he was married, I always liked to think that he suffered for me—if only a little.
Call me selfish, but I liked telling myself that everything he did was just an attempt to make me feel the pain he himself felt—without knowing that all he needed to do to make me suffer was exactly what he actually did: reject me.
Life is a mess.
You’re happy, then you’re disappointed, then suddenly desperate—but when you least expect it, you find a way to pull yourself together and be happy again.
The waves of events never stop, keeping us in constant motion. And I suppose that must be the grace of being alive—even though, more often than not, it feels like anything but grace.
I don’t know what to do.
I want to keep clinging to resentment, to the past, to all the pain I’ve been carrying for years. But if there’s one thing clear in my mind now, it’s that I feel light.
Life is still a mess—but inside me, everything is clean and organized. After five long years, the trash has finally been taken out.
And now I wonder: what do you do with so much space?
***
“Hi,” I say softly when Nero blinks in the dim hospital room, waiting for the haze of sedation to lift. It’s only been a few hours, but being sedated is never a good thing. He turns his head toward me, his eyes slowly clearing, and I see the exact moment he realizes something is wrong. “You’re in the hospital. We brought you here after you fainted at my place, but you’re okay. Everything’s okay. You were sedated, so you might feel a little confused.”
I explain slowly, and Nero nods along with every sentence.
“Forgive me?” he echoes the last words he said before passing out. I set words aside.
“Are you thirsty?” I ask. He nods again, but before I can get the water, Nero starts moving in the bed, trying to sit up. I put a hand on his thigh to stop him from getting up, but he shifts against the headboard and sits.
“Forgive me?” he repeats, looking around the empty hospital room. “I wish I’d been strong enough to hear everything you went through without ending up in a hospital room—but I was weak. You lived through all of that while raising our son, Nina, while turning him into an incredible child. And I… I couldn’t even handle listening. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Nero, and—”
“No.” He shakes his head and reaches for my hand. The hard swallow tells me he really is thirsty, but he refuses to let go so I can get the water. “I’m going to ask you this every day for the rest of our lives and it still won’t be enough. But I need you to know, Nina, how deeply I understand that everything that happened was my fault.”
I shake my head.
“Now isn’t the time for this.”
“It is. It is. I waited too long. I waited too long to hear you, and I will never—never again—do that, Nina. I can’t erase the past. If I could, I would, no matter what it cost me. God knows I would. But I can’t, and it will never stop hurting. What Icando—whatIwilldo—is write a different present and future for the three of us. By your side, in whatever way you allow me to be, and by our son’s side for anything and everything, at any time.”
He exhales shakily.
“I also know my words don’t mean anything. But I’ll make them real every single day.”
I nod, accepting his promises.
“It’s okay,” I say.
“It’s not,” he replies. “But I’ll do my best to make it be.”
***
“Did you try to fly too, Daddy?” Kael asks as he bursts into the room the next morning. The alarmed looks on Drako’s, Apollo’s, and Atlas’s faces tell me my son has already given them the context for the question. Sitting on the bed, dressed and just waiting for the doctor to stop by so he can be discharged, Nero opens his arms to Kael, who quickly grabs his hands.
